An activist, former lecturer in Petroleum Engineering and chieftain of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in Kwara State, Lukman Salawudeen, speaks with BIOLA AZEEZ on why he is vying for Offa LG chairmanship seat in Saturday’s election.
What motivates you to run for this position, and what specific changes do you hope to achieve?
To be candid with you, one of the major motivations that prompted me into politics is the fact that as an activist, who has been agitating for good governance, we discovered that those who have the opportunity to be in position of authority lack idea, the practical ideological tendencies, that can better the life of the people. They tend not to understand the problem that they are actually elected to solve. So, this prompted some of us who have been agitators; who have been activists agitating for the wellbeing of Nigerian people and the masses in particular to push in for politics. We thought all these ideas, all these innovations – because of the generation we represent. If we have the opportunity to be in power, our approach will be different because we have a better understanding of the problem as a victim of bad governance in this country. It is in our generation that there is no automatic job for the best graduates. It is in our generation that one needs to pay before you get employed. Our generation does not have hope even after graduation that he or she would be gainfully employed. So, as a victim of the problem, if we have the opportunity to redirect the affairs of this country, we should only do it better because we have a practical understanding of the problem and we are best fit to provide a solution. We have to understand the fact that most of our people in government do not have an understanding of people’s problems. So, whenever they are trying to provide a solution, they tend to misdirect the priority of the people. My priority now is to prioritise the priority of the people. When people need water, I should be able to give them water, not road. When they need roads, I should know that it is roads they actually require, so that their requirements and their aspirations and their yearnings will be exactly what the authority will be providing at the time they need it, because, as you’ll agree with me, when someone is thirsty, if you offer such person food it is as good as you have not done anything. So putting the right peg in the right hole is the cardinal objective of my administration, if God gives me this opportunity – prioritizing the priority of the people and giving the people what they actually need at the time they need it.
What do you consider the most pressing issues facing your local government at the moment and how do you intend to solve these?
I have a better understanding of every critical need of our people and our community. One of the cardinal points of our yearning is infrastructure development and job creation. Our sons and daughters are not known to be lazy. We used to be an industrial town in the past, which made it so precious for people to grow, live, and eat independently. Our people are not known to be beggars. They don’t worship individuals. That is why we are unique in the entire Kwara. My people will tell you they are proud because nobody is feeding them. They are feeding on their handwork. Over time, we have lost this status. Unemployment is at the peak in this community because the old town that is known as an industrial hub is now a civil servant community. That is one. Secondly, our infrastructure is so decayed that it is becoming so embarrassing. Take, for instance, our community has never felt the presence of the federal government for a long time. We don’t have prominent sons or daughters of Offa who could leverage their positions to make things look up for the community and, this is a community that has been ranked the most educated in the entire north-central Nigeria- a single community with over 150 professors, countless PhD holders, engineers, and captains of industries. But when you look at our status as a people and the state of our infrastructure, you will see a great contradiction. Therefore, infrastructure is one of the major problems we are also facing. When you take these two out, you now see the level of unemployment that is staring at us. This stark reality of unemployment has degenerated into insecurity. One is a link to the other. These are the two cardinal things that have beguiled our community. These are the areas of my priority that I am going to address holistically.
Do you think the judgement of the Supreme Court on local government is enough to give independence to the local government?
It is not. In all sincerity, it is not. An Independent of local government, autonomous local government is beyond financial autonomy. We also need to look at the administration of the local government. Like some states are being sincere, they have scrapped off Ministry of Local Government and Substantial Affairs.
With the recent grant of full autonomy and direct disbursement of funds to the local government, how do you plan to manage and allocate these funds effectively?
I am a product of zero budgeting. My leadership development skill was built around zero budgeting. Zero budgeting means planning without resources, an ideology to drive funds to pursue a project. That has been my background. You understand that as a student unionist in this country, since the era of General Babangida, student unionism has been made voluntarily, where student leaders have to implement one two projects, all through zero budgeting. We don’t have the funds but we have to execute projects. So, we always plan on zero budgeting. This same thing will be applicable in my new job, whenever I take it up, in the sense that we’ll look for critical ways of generating ideas that will complement the federal allocation, because truly, if we want to base every effort and development plan on allocation or funds coming, it becomes so difficult to meet up. So, my cardinal focus will be on how to improve the IGF base of the community. With the autonomy coming now, it means there must be proper allocation and application of funds, meaning that it is going to be on priority.
What I’m saying here is that allocation of resources would be based on priority. When there is fairness in identifying priorities, there won’t be any problem. In administration and governance, there is something called the scale of preference, a scale of preference in the sense that when we itemize our needs, when resources come; we’re going to place them and apply them according to their scale of preferences. In doing so, we also ensure even distribution of these developmental attentions.
For instance, we have five districts in Offa local government. We have Ojomu, Essa, Shawo, Balogun and Igbo-dun making five. Then there’s the recently created Asalofa district making six. When we want to allocate resources, we’ll ensure even distribution of whatever resources we are allocating in terms of project or intervention. So every strata of the community, every strata of the local government, will be feeling the impact simultaneously. This will enable us to balance the interest and also identify the needs of each district in application of the fund. Once we are able to guide against misplacement of priority and misapplication of resources, we’re going to have results, have impact for our allocation as it is coming, because now, one of the major problems we are having with the scarce resources is the fact that there is a lot of fraudulent processes in the expenditure of the government. Take, for instance, the number of the SUBEB staff will need to be ascertained, hope there are no ghost workers along this line, because these are the revenue leakages that we need to critically look at and examine. When we are able to address that we’ll ensure that it is the exact number of people who are working that are earning salary. That will save us a lot of stress in terms of application of fund, so we’ll not be applying funds to where there is a leakage.
So, these are the areas we’re going to critically look at to ensure that our allocation as it comes is properly guided. That it does not go to the governors, because the President has said that the essence of autonomy is to ensure that the resources are not channelled through the governors who use their willpower to determine its application when it is not coming directly to the local government. It means we must establish the needs of the people, the masses, and apply the fund according to their preferences. So that is the way we’re going to manage this resource to ensure that every citizen, every resident of Offa local government has impacts for this money because this money is not a personal fund of anybody. It is the accumulated tax taken from citizens that is being returned to the authority to work for the people. So the essence of this is that we’re going to ensure the Offa people’s allocation work for the people, for the benefit of Offa people. This is the way we’re going to ensure it does. The style we are going to adopt is a scale of preference that will prioritize even distribution of these resources and fairness in identifying the pressing needs of each of these districts. When we get their preferences, we will now know which way to go. When you understand how to manage people, power and politics it becomes easier for you. For instance, you want a project to be executed for you at the cost of five naira. You must have done your background checks that this project would cost N5. You now give it out at N7, letting the person know that you know that the project is N5, but you have considered other factors, including his profit margin and telling him you don’t want to hinder on the quality of the job to be done…. The problem we have in this country, particularly in the contract system is that of ‘sorting’ out people along the line before a job is completed. I understand this part but I don’t think the quality should be compromised. We’re going to work mostly through the direct labour if we have this opportunity.
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